Edwards back at Headingley with focus on youth talent

Diccon Edwards’s remit on succeeding Neil Back as head coach of Leeds Carnegie is to achieve success by re-establishing the club’s youth system. That means producing young prospects year on year, giving them their chance in the first team, and convincing them through achievements on the pitch that their ambitions can be matched by the Yorkshire club.

It is a philosophy the Leeds board had upper-most in their minds when they began the search for a replacement for World Cup winner Back, and one Edwards buys into wholeheartedly.

Since leaving his post as the head of Leeds’s youth programme last year, the 38-year-old has been the Rugby Football Union’s national Academy manager and flies to Italy tomorrow to finish the job he started as coach of England at the Under-20s World Cup.

He will begin his three-year contract as head coach of a club he played for 76 times on his return, though plotting and scheming an instant return to the Premeirship will be at the back of his mind. In his four years as Leeds’s Academy chief Edwards oversaw the development of stars like Calum Clark and Joe Ford, talented prospects who have gone on to play for Northampton – Clark as recently as last month in the Heineken Cup final.

Edwards also progressed Tom Denton and Phil Swainston through the Leeds ranks; two players who broke into the Premiership team over the last two seasons and who Edwards hopes will stay at the club as they attempt to return to rugby union’s elite.

“There’s a lot of quality young players who just need an opportunity to show what they can do,” said Edwards, who combined his role at Leeds with head coach duties at Otley.

“The aim is to establish a core group of young players supported by quality, experienced and proven professionals. Having worked with all these players I am confident they can step up and compete consistently in the Championship.

“We are very proud of our record of developing young players and we need to maintain our focus on that. Recently players have left Leeds because they felt they had not been given an opportunity to play.

“We need to show our confidence in them that they can step up to play week-in, week-out in the Championship. Here at Leeds they will get that opportunity.”

Edwards played for Selby, Wakefield, Leicester Tigers, Newport and Leeds. He also played rugby league for Castleford and was capped by the Wales rugby league team.

He worked alongside the old regime of Back and Andy Key as they won promotion to the Premiership and then survived in their first season. The wheels came off last term as the club lost their fight for survival, with Back quitting as head coach just days after their relegation was confirmed.

With the club set to commence the repayment of a £2m debt on July 1, this is a crucial appointment for chief executive Gary Hetherington and the board.

A one-off parachute payment of £2.6m makes an immediate return to the top flight critical. Failure to win promotion from the Championship will result in a reduction of central funding to £300,000 which could leave the club facing an uncertain future.

Three years ago Back and Key labelled promotion as non-negotiable, but Edwards – who says the retention of players takes precedence over external player recruitment – is not as unequivocal.

“I wouldn’t say it’s non-negotiable,” he said. “The aspirations are to win promotion to the Premiership; that’s the Year One objective and I believe we will have the squad to do that.

“The challenge is to get the best out of these players, and if we do that, we will achieve our objectives.

“I’m really excited, it feels like I’m coming home. The only thing I questioned was had I been away long enough to have developed in another environment? I feel I have. I have fresh perspective and this was too good an opportunity to miss.”